Terrorism-Domestic Prosecutions for October 2012

Number Latest Month

6

Number Previous Month

4

Percent Change from 1 year ago

-2.1

Percent Change from 5 years ago

15.0

Table 1: Criminal Terrorism-Domestic Prosecutions

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during October 2012 the government reported 6 new terrorism-domestic prosecutions.
According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is up from 4 the previous month.

The comparisons of the number of defendants charged are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. (See Table 2)

When monthly 2012 prosecutions of this type are compared with those of the same period in
the previous year, the number of filings was down (-2.1 percent).
Prosecutions over the past year are still much higher than they were five years ago.
Overall, the data show that prosecutions of this type are up 15 percent from levels reported in 2007.

Figure 1: Monthly trends in terrorism-domestic prosecutions

The increase from the levels five years ago in terrorism-domestic prosecutions for these matters is shown more clearly in Figure 2.
The vertical bars in Figure 2
represent the number of terrorism-domestic prosecutions of this type recorded on a month-to-month
basis. Where a prosecution was initially filed in U.S. Magistrate Court and then transferred to the U.S. District Court,
the magistrate filing date was used since this provides an earlier indicator of actual trends.
The superimposed line on the bars plots the six-month moving average so
that natural fluctuations are smoothed out. To view trends year-by-year rather than month-by-month, see TRAC's annual report series for a broader picture.